01819cam a22002417 4500001000600000003000500006005001700011008004100028100002100069245010900090260006600199490005200265500001400317520085400331530006101185538007201246538003601318700002101354710004201375830008701417856003701504856003601541h0087NBER20161210000026.0161210s1996 mau||||fs|||| 000 0 eng d1 aFloud, Roderick.10aHealth, Height and Welfareh[electronic resource]:bBritain 1700-1980 /cRoderick Floud, Bernard Harris. aCambridge, Mass.bNational Bureau of Economic Researchc1996.1 aNBER historical working paper seriesvno. h0087 aMay 1996.3 aThis paper reviews the evidence regarding the main trends in the height of the British population since the early eighteenth century. We argue that the average heights of successive birth cohorts of British males increased slowly between the middle of the eighteenth century and the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Average heights fell during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, before rising from the 1850s onwards. This analysis is supported by an examination of the main trends in children's heights during the twentieth century. Our findings are compared with the results of an alternative method of measuring human welfare - a modified version of the United Nations' Human Development Index. The main trends in human development reinforce the conclusions drawn from our own interpretation of the anthropometric evidence. aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers. aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. aMode of access: World Wide Web.1 aHarris, Bernard.2 aNational Bureau of Economic Research. 0aHistorical Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)vno. h0087.4 uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/h008741uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3386/h0087